Her parents and Buchanan had gone to mass every Sunday at Old St. Patrick’s while Sister Elizabeth, a nun who smelled of lilac water, would come to the house to tell Fern Bible stories. Instead of going away to private school, like Buchanan had, she had a string of tutors. Fern didn’t want to show people her face, and her parents didn’t force her to. It was as simple as that, really. Too simple. Too easy. And it had taken her far too long to begin to realize how damaging her avoidance of the outside world had become.
The week that followed her visit to Buchanan’s bedroom felt more like a month. An entire season, maybe. She didn’t want to see her mother, so when she knocked on Fern’s door the following Sunday evening, she sent her away. Margie knocked a few times, but she was easy to ignore. Mrs. Jennaway herself came up to deliver her meals, and Fern did allow her inside. But the older woman had no place asking questions, and she knew it, so away she went again to the kitchen. Neither her father nor Buchanan bothered with any attempt to draw her out. She was willing to bet her brother had told their parents they’d been found out. Fern hoped they felt guilty as sin. She wanted their consciences in agony.
As Monday stretched into Tuesday and then the rest of the week crawled by, she grew confident that the next Saturday evening dinner would be cancelled. She would not attend. Her mother had to know that. Fern wouldnever consent to an arrangement with any of the selected suitors. Especially now.
Saturday morning arrived with Mrs. Jennaway delivering her breakfast tray—along with a long box from Marshall Field’s.
“From your mum,” she whispered before bowing out and shutting the door quietly behind her.
Fern stared at the rectangular box, knowing what was inside, innocently folded between layers of blue tissue paper. Like her mother, she was never allowed to wear the same dress twice when entertaining. She kept some of the past dresses, but most went to charity auctions, or to Margie, who could easily have the waists taken in a pinch and the hems tucked up.
The familiar suction of air and ruffle of tissue came as she lifted the lid off the box. The tissue crinkled loudly beneath her fingers as she peeled the blue layers aside. In between two layers was an envelope. Her mother didn’t usually send notes with the dresses. Fern tore into it, brimming with anger and curiosity. She couldn’t possibly be hosting another dinner!
Fern noticed something different right away. The note was in her mother’s handwriting, not Margie’s. This meant something, if only to her.
Dearest Fern,
The invitations for tonight’s dinner had all gone out before last weekend and therefore, this evening will go on unimpeded. I know you disapprove of what Buchanan has roughly explained, but I hope you have spent these many daysin solitude coming to understand and accept your father’s idea. Cocktails at eight. Red is a lovely color on you.
~ Mother
She folded the note and ran her thumb and forefinger along the crease. So, it had beenFather’sscheme. The surprise of it sunk like a rock into the pit of her stomach. He’d been a district court judge for as long as Fern could remember. Judge Henry Adair. Sometimes, when thinking and looking at him, that’s the name she reached for first, not Father. They’d never conversed very much, and she’d always had the impression that while he liked his children, he could have just as contentedly gone without them. Knowing that her father had taken enough of an interest in her affairs to concoct this scheme confused her. It didn’t make her any less disappointed, though. She had half a mind to slam the cover back on the dress box and toss it out the turret window.
An excuse could be made that she was ill. Those bachelors who’d been invited this evening would be anything but disappointed. It would be a boon, really. They’d get their trinkets, enjoy a nice dinner and a few drinksgratis, and then set out for the clubs or cabarets to cap off their fortuitous night.
She gritted her teeth and lifted the red silk, bright as a maraschino cherry. Her mother’s final comment in the note had been correct: With her dark blonde hair and deep green eyes, this shade of red was a lovely color on Fern. The dress was as chaste as all the others: a high, squared neck, a low dip in the back, fitted sleevesto the wrist. It wasn’t the cut but the color that gave inspiration.
Bright red and dangerous. The color was like a light switch being thrown inside a dark room, dousing all shame and loathing, and igniting something altogether different. The color reminded her of fire and how unpredictable it could be. A lot like people, she supposed.
All the bachelors over the last few months had arrived with predictions of their own. That poor little Fern would act in one way—sheltered, shy. Unsurprising.
She held the dress close to her bosom and leaped off her bed with a change of mind.
3
The unexpected guest arrived just as dinner was about to begin.
He wasn’t in the Gold Room for cocktails when Fern entered, wearing the red gown and hitching her chin higher than ever before. Judge Adair was once again holding court at the wet bar, surrounded by the evening’s guests: a very recognizable congressman from their ward, another one of Fern’s uncles (she seemed to have an endless supply), Buchanan, and two unfamiliar men, both of whom were talking with her brother.
It might have been the dress, or the way she held her shoulders squarely, but as Fern joined her mother by the sofa and fireplace, she felt the eyes of the men following her. She surprised them all, and herself, by turning and meeting their pointed stares. She didn’t look away, even when her cheeks grew hot, and her heart thumped madly in her chest. Fern simply raised one eyebrow and silently dared them to be the ones to look away first. They were.
Her mother must have sensed trouble. She widened her eyes at Fern several times during cocktails, when Fern admitted to disliking green (the color of her aunt’s gown), asking loudly for a second martini, and saying that she was excited to bob her hair like her cousin, Patrice, who was unfortunately not present. Tension rolled from one corner of the room to the other.
It was perfect.
Mr. Tate entered the Gold Room and pulled Judge Adair into the foyer just as the announcement for dinner arrived. When her father didn’t immediately return, the remainder of the party filed into the dining room and took their seats. Fern’s seat never changed — she was always placed at the center of the table, with her back to the massive oval mirror accenting the wall. Her mother assumed she wouldn’t wish to look at herself during dinner. The judge’s absence extended another five minutes, during which throats were repeatedly cleared and polite inquiries about the menu made. Finally, Fern’s mother requested the soup course. However, before the bowls could be brought in, two servers whisked into the room and, with a bow and apology to Mrs. Adair, began to lay out another place setting.
“What is the meaning of this?” she asked the uniformed server.
“At the judge’s request, ma’am,” the boy replied, his cheeks and ears flaming.
An excited murmur worked its way around the table, and Fern was suddenly happy she hadn’t stayed in her room.
The servers had barely finishedlaying out a fanned, mint-green napkin, gleaming cutlery, and a spotless wine glass when Judge Adair entered the room. He wasn’t alone. There was a collective shudder of motion as people turned in their seats to view the unexpected guest.
He looked to be in his early thirties and was dressed as well as any of the other men in the room, if not better. His fine, pin-striped suit accentuated broad shoulders, and the close fit made Fern think it had been tailored to his specific measurements, not purchased ready-made. He wasn’t wearing a tuxedo bow as the others were, but a long, creamy white tie tucked into his vest.
“Forgive my absence,” the judge began, his gaze springing from face to face without settling on any of them for more than a breath. “I was welcoming our last guest of the evening, Mr. George Black.” He then quickly took his seat, seeming to collapse into it.
